Why Payet’s injury isn’t the end of the world for West Ham

Yes, Hammers fans, our worst fears have come true after a third of the season has been played. Our summer marque signing has been sidelined for up to three months after an amateur Sunday league tackle by Everton’s ‘professional’ footballer James McCarthy.

Young Jack and David Sullivan confirmed this terrible news earlier this afternoon, which has left every Hammers fan leaving work tonight feeling sick to the stomach knowing that our squad will miss one of the league’s outstanding performers.

Sadly payet will be out for about 3 months! Huge miss for the team. How the Everton player didn't get sent off amazes me!! #COYI

The worse thing about this is that the tackle WAS intentional and the ball was not the target in the tackle. A filthy tackle that didn’t receive a red card ruined the game for West Ham but it might ruin a huge opportunity to break in to the top seven.

Payet’s setback means we probably won’t see him until 2nd February 2016 where we face Aston Villa at home.

Let me see if I can find an upside to a very hard situation for the club…

Let’s go back to last year. We see a West Ham side in a similar position and a key player gets injured, what happened? We faded out into the darkness and finished the season in the bottom half after being 4th at Christmas. We are the only Premier League to do this, which is an unwelcome and unwanted record to hold. But look at how “thin” the squad was, relying on Matt Jarvis, Kevin Nolan and Carlton Cole to bail us out of trouble and also panic sign Nene. Remember him? No, didn’t think you did. Influential as always.

This year you can definitely tell Sullivan and Gold have learnt their lesson. Not only did we see almost seven new faces, but two old faces return to the squad, to give us one of the strongest and deepest squads we’ve ever had in the Premier League.

Payet’s injury could force the hand of Super Slav to think and work on a plan B over the international break. We have players to come back in to the squad and also players we haven’t really seen since we’ve signed them. Alex Song and Diafra Sakho are very capable of winning games, as we saw at the start of last season.

Mauro Zarate is bang on form when he starts and we could see him start more often. Micharil Antonio CAN finally be given his chance to show what he can do from the start – after all, he was one of the Championship’s hottest prospects. His 3 Ps (physique, pace and power) will definitely give west ham that extra dimension and yet other Premier League clubs do not know what he is really capable of. Could this be the plan all the long?

Also, you need to look at how other teams around us will cope if their star man got injured. Who would score goals for Tottenham if Harry Kane got injured? Who would muscle defences for Everton if Romelu Lukaku went missing for three months? Who will provide the assists for Leicester City if Riyad Mahrez picked up a knock? With West Ham, we have an abundance of options. Feeling positive now?

After writing this I’ve gone from an emotional train wreck, panicking at how West Ham will cope, to feeling relaxed and optimistic.

I trust Slaven Bilic and I trust our squad to get the results we need to maintain our great form!

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